As more and more users turn to computer networks such as the Internet and particularly the World Wide Web (hereinafter the “Web”) for information, content providers are increasingly converting traditional content (e.g., printed materials such as books, magazines, newspapers, newsletters, manuals, guides, references, articles, reports, documents, and the like) to electronic form.
For some content providers, a quick and simple way to convert printed content to an electronic form for publication is to create a digital image of the printed content, i.e., a digital image containing representation of text or images from the traditional content. As those skilled in the art will appreciate, this type of conversion is typically performed through the use of a scanner. However, while simply generating a digital image (or images) of printed content can be accomplished quickly, the resulting digital images might not be particularly well suited for various scenarios. For example, digital images corresponding to the conversion of pages of a book into electronic form may not be well suited in some viewing scenarios. Of course, the reasons that a digital image is not always an optimal form/format of delivery are many, but include issues regarding the clarity or resolution of digital images, the large size of a digital image file and, perhaps most importantly, the rendering of the digital images on various sized displays. For example, traditional digital images may be of a fixed size and include substantial margins or white space around the text or images.
The margins may take up a significant portion of an electronic display when the digital image is presented on a computing device. Thus, the margins may detract from the presentation of the digital image as the margins may effectively reduce the amount of “active” display area of the electronic display, in essence making the display area smaller than its actual size.